Long Distance Communication

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

On the "effect on game" side' date=' it does make it harder for PCs to have contacts, DNPCs that aren't along on the travels, etc, if there's absolutely no FTL comms.[/quote']

 

True, but again it is a global limitation, so the bad guys have the same delay in communicating with their contacts as the players do. It doesn't make contacts useless, it just means that communicating with them is done at the same speed as all other communications. If you are at Trade Station Alpha, your contacts might be just down the corridor - but when you are exploring Blorch Zeta 6, you are going to have to wait a bit for an answer.

[John-Walton]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

What about an Ansible?

[dmjalund]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

I'm Ansible to No one!!

[Yansuf]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

I always liked the FTL com system from the novel "We all died at Breakaway Station."

[Nyrath]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

I always liked the FTL com system from the novel "We all died at Breakaway Station."

 

Oh, my. I managed to miss this novel. I'll have to get a copy now.

http://www.sfreviews.com/docs/Richard%20C.%20Meredith_1969_We%20All%20Died%20At%20Breakaway%20Station.htm

[megaplayboy]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Two quick observations:

1. The speed of communications will be largely equal to the speed of sensors as well. If "radio" comm doesn't go FTL, then neither do the sensors.

2. If communications are limited to starship travel speeds, this makes interstellar warfare incredibly problematic, extremely dependent on espionage and counter-intelligence. You need to know where the enemy fleet is attacking next(and when, and with what), or else half your fleet is pinned down defending the homeworld just in case. Otherwise your warning time is limited to the STL travel time from wherever the enemy fleet arrives to where your planet is...and even then a distress signal won't do much since it's dependent on sending a fast vessel to go summon help. Even a small craft could do immense damage if equipped with WMD.

[Nyrath]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

...and even then a distress signal won't do much since it's dependent on sending a fast vessel to go summon help. Even a small craft could do immense damage if equipped with WMD.

Especially since a WMD from a technology base that included FTL starships is probably a WMD that can incinerate an entire planet down to bedrock.

 

Agreed, unless sensors give you advanced warning enough to counter incursions with your defense fleets, you will not have any interstellar wars that last longer than about a minute or so. Dispatch a small craft with a planet-wrecker bomb to each of the enemy empire's planets and the war will be over about a minute after they arrive.

[Clonus]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Especially since a WMD from a technology base that included FTL starships is probably a WMD that can incinerate an entire planet down to bedrock.

 

Or not. After all, the chemical weapons we call WMDs don't come near to inflicting the death toll of nukes.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

The speed of communications will be largely equal to the speed of sensors as well. If "radio" comm doesn't go FTL' date=' then neither do the sensors.[/quote']Not necessarily. The ability to detect a phenomenon does not equate to the ability to broadcast with it.

[Clonus]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

The ability to both detect and create a phenomenon does equate to the ability to communicate with it. However if detection is sufficiently range-limited you might end up with a situation where inner worlds have space "telegraphs" with maybe a ten or a hundred repeater stations to maintain communications while the ships on the frontier are isolated.

[Nyrath]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Or not. After all' date=' the chemical weapons we call WMDs don't come near to inflicting the death toll of nukes.[/quote']

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

 

Yes, a tech base that includes FTL starships can create a WMD that will only kill a maximum of two people.

 

The point is, it is also possible for it to create a WMD that will eliminate all life on a planet.

Which means the first xenophobic race that produces FTL starships and planet-wreckers in a universe with no FTL detectors can and will (xenophobes, remember?) eliminate all other life in the entire galaxy in a couple of months.

 

This is the "one bad apple" scenario, where just one evil civilization can spoil a good time for everyone.

This is why military intelligence bases their scenarios upon the enemy's capabilities, not their intentions.

[Nyrath]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Not necessarily. The ability to detect a phenomenon does not equate to the ability to broadcast with it.

 

True. Here on Earth we can detect cosmic-ray photons that are far beyond our ability to generate.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Not necessarily. The ability to detect a phenomenon does not equate to the ability to broadcast with it.

 

True, but if, say, one could detect and identify some FTL emission or "ripple in space" due to use of an FTL drive, then one could presumably create or emulate an emission to happen in rapid short pulses(i.e., like binary code), so that it could be detected by another detector light years away. All you need is a smallish FTL drive generating a similar pulse. One could even have an SOS process whereby an incoming attack is indicated by launching a pre-specified number of FTL drones briefly firing their drives at a given speed in order to communicate the signal.

[Yansuf]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

 

Yes, a tech base that includes FTL starships can create a WMD that will only kill a maximum of two people.

 

The point is, it is also possible for it to create a WMD that will eliminate all life on a planet.

Which means the first xenophobic race that produces FTL starships and planet-wreckers in a universe with no FTL detectors can and will (xenophobes, remember?) eliminate all other life in the entire galaxy in a couple of months.

 

This is the "one bad apple" scenario, where just one evil civilization can spoil a good time for everyone.

This is why military intelligence bases their scenarios upon the enemy's capabilities, not their intentions.

 

It worked so well for the Kangas in Apocalypse Troll.

For a while, anyway.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

True' date=' but if, say, one could detect and identify some FTL emission or "ripple in space" due to use of an FTL drive, then one could presumably create or emulate an emission to happen in rapid short pulses(i.e., like binary code), so that it could be detected by another detector light years away. All you need is a smallish FTL drive generating a similar pulse. One could even have an SOS process whereby an incoming attack is indicated by launching a pre-specified number of FTL drones briefly firing their drives at a given speed in order to communicate the signal.[/quote']

 

Something like the technology developed by the Manticoreans in the more recent Honour Harrington books. Project Ghost Rider, I think they call it. In their case, though, they have finetuned things to the extent that it can actually be used as a very short -range (in-system, basically) FTL comm.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

If anyone can explain why it was so vital to protect Breakaway Station when you have starships making the trip all the time, I would be very glad to hear it.

Still, quite the book. Meredrith was not the greatest of stylists, but he ran a plot like nobody's business.

[Nyrath]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

If anyone can explain why it was so vital to protect Breakaway Station when you have starships making the trip all the time' date=' I would be very glad to hear it.[/quote']

Because it was mandated by the plot, of course.

 

Though I'm sure that a plausible solution could be developed, it is just that Meredrith didn't bother.

[Clonus]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear.

 

Yes, a tech base that includes FTL starships can create a WMD that will only kill a maximum of two people.

 

The point is, it is also possible for it to create a WMD that will eliminate all life on a planet.

Which means the first xenophobic race that produces FTL starships and planet-wreckers in a universe with no FTL detectors can and will (xenophobes, remember?) eliminate all other life in the entire galaxy in a couple of months.

 

Well depending on where you have to come out of FTL. Of course it also depends on your knowledge of where everyone else is.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Long Distance Communication

 

Well depending on where you have to come out of FTL. Of course it also depends on your knowledge of where everyone else is.

 

This was precisely my solution to the instantaneous FTL death fleet.

 

FTL craft in my setting, by my completely made up physics of FTL, have to come out of FTL pretty much on the fringes of a star system - they can't enter or exit their FTL "tunnels" near any significant gravity well. The "tunnel" is essentially a shortcut in space generated by a massive gravity generator and will be unstable if affected even minutely by other bodies in space. "Unstable tunnel" = your ship being ejected back into normal space... in many, tiny, tiny little pieces, strewn over a few light-seconds of space and going in random directions.

 

So I have FTL craft that take days to weeks to get to even nearby systems (Earth to Alpha Centauri is about 2 days, and to the edge of "human space" - about 40 LY - takes 3-4 weeks), but these craft don't have FTL Comms beyond sending an FTL ship, or the emergency short-lived links that telepaths can create. So you can get a tiny amount of instant intel, but no more than a sentence worth before the "link" expires (insert quantum entanglement techno-babble here.) And that instant info is only available if you actually have a telepath who is maintaining a link to where you want the message to go at the time.

 

And of course a lot of this assumes that the enemy fleet is just going to glass our planet(s) - things change even further if conquest or cultural / economic absorption are the goal of our mysterious hostile aliens.